thirty one weeks

Today I have hit the 31 week mark.  Only 9 weeks left to go! Yahoo for single digits.

I planned on being very diligent in my journaling and blogging in regards to my pregnancy but with work and buying a new house somewhere along the line I dropped the ball.

Here are my 31 week stats:

Uterus measuring right on at 31 weeks
Fetal Heart Tones:  133bpm
Total weight gain: According to my chart 18lbs.   In reality however, 25lbs.
Maternity clothes? Yes.  Almost daily I wear maternity pants which are super comfy.  In addition I wear some maternity tops some regular.  By some miracle my scrubs still fit and I think they will last me the next 9 weeks.
Stretch marks? none.
Sleep: Has definitely gotten better with 2 trips to the potty throughout the night.  I also need one regular pillow and one body pillow on each side so as a roll side to side I don't have to take the pillow with me.
Best moment this week:  We had our housewarming party and while it wasn't much of a party it was wonderful to see my entire house in order...clean, organized, and everything in it's proper place.
Food cravings: DONUTS, Banberry donuts was the fix for today.  I walked into the OB office and smelled syrup.. and for whatever reason I then decided donuts was a necessity so we drove all the way from Sandy to Salt Lake for a dozen of the delicious donuts.
Anything making you queasy or sick: no. my sense of smell has actually decreased (or maybe I've gotten used to it).
Gender: Boy
Name:  still unsure.. with a few possibilities.  Lance doesn't want to set anything in stone until we see him, so I just keep calling him LJ for Lance Jr.
Belly Button in or out? definitely out.
Movement: he loves to kick when I wake up around 7am, also around the time I go to bed.  Also lunch time seems to be his favorite :)
Contractions:  irregular.  Yesterday was the first time I've had a painful contraction, but I'm sure dehydration and working all day was a contributor to that. 
Wedding rings on or off? Engagement ring off. Wedding bank on.
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy, but entirely exhausted from working multiple days in a row.  12 hours on your feet does not make a pregnant girl a happy camper.
Looking forward to: Hopefully getting the nursery painted in the next few weeks and finally buying some furniture and baby stuff!

Housewarming

We've been busy busy busy the last 3 weeks trying to get our house in order, decorated, and things put away.  Since we've had 80% of our belongings in a storage unit for the last 7 months it was difficult trying to remember the things that we had.  For the most part other than new bed linens and a few pieces of furniture, I haven't purchased anything new for the house.  All the decor that we have on display is all stuff that we've collected and had in storage.  Who knew we had so many picture frames! Holy moly.  Here are some pictures of our new home.  Of course over the next year or so more personalization will take place, but for now everything is clean and has a home. 

 Outside:  New flag & garage decor.

Lance's Office:  This room still needs some help in regards to decreasing clutter, but with the help of a filing cabinet the clutter should be alleviated soon.

 Kid Bath:  Personalization to come....

 Guest Bedroom: This is our old bed (queen) that we no longer needed when we were generously given Lance's aunt's king sized bed.  At one point Lance wanted to sell it but now that we are in our own home I'm so glad we have a guest bed. 

 Master:

 Living Room:

 New addition:  Doggie Door & Doggie Corner

Our lives literally revolve around these two clowns.  We had Lance's uncle come over and help us install this doggie door.  It was quite a process cutting the hole and building a ramp for them.

 Yard: 

Thanks to those who came out to see our progress thus far.  I'm sure more things will change, but I'm happy to have everything out of a box and placed in their proper places.

One Room at A Time: DIY Wall Mural

Trying to organize and decorate an entire house is daunting, especially when you're 29 weeks pregnant.  We are slowly getting things done at our new house and spent one afternoon just hanging all of the pictures we've accumulated throughout the last 3 years.  We decided on making a large mural type collage to display our pictures and eventually will swap out some of the pictures so it isn't just a narcissistic collage of our wedding photos. 

Here's how we did it:
First we gathered all the pictures/frames we wanted to include in the collage.  We originally had the college extend across 8 feet, but by the time we finished adding in different frames we ended at 11 1/2 feet!  We laid everything out on the carpet and then realized we could better align things if we got some butcher paper.

We then relaid everything out across a large roll of butcher paper making sure the heights aligned.  We checked the spacing of everything and shuffled around frames to our liking. 

 Next we took a pencil and outlined a square around each frame.

 Once we were finished with our outlining we then drew a line or circle on the butcher paper in the exact spot the hooks would need to be placed.  This took a lot of measuring, praying, and guesstimating. 

the dash is where the hanging hook sits on the frame.

Next we removed all the pictures from the butcher paper and taped it on the wall.  Here is Lance making sure we were level and straight.  

 Next we took our nails and hooks and hammered them into the wall through the butcher paper and began placing the frames on their prospective hooks.

 Once all the hooks and nails were in we then pulled off the pictures again and removed the butcher paper from the wall leaving only the hooks.

 Last and Final step was to hang the pictures!!


Before:

 After:

A Vegas Trip

 This past weekend Lance and I journeyed down to Las Vegas for an unexpected trip.  My mom's sister, my aunt, had a stoke a week ago and was hospitalized in an ICU unit for 6 days before they disconnected her life support and she passed on.  It definitely wasn't the best reason for going on a weekend vacation, but it definitely made me realize just how important it is to cherish each and every moment and to spend those moments with the ones you love: family. 

It was honestly such a spiritual moment to enter the hospital room and see my mother, brother, father, husband, and cousins surrounding the bedside of my aunt.  I truly love my very diverse family and all that they bring to the table.  I am grateful for the knowledge I have of the gospel and to know that while my family doesn't consist of church members, I will one day be with them again.

We spent the majority of the weekend at my cousins house tending to her two adorable children.  My other cousin, her brother, also has two children and between the two of them their girls, Rexi and Kara, are 6 months apart (5 and 4 1/2 years) and their boys are 6 months apart (Henry & Kaden) and our little boy is due just 6 months after Kaden!  It's so much fun to watch my little cousins interact and I'm so excited to be having another boy to add to the chaos. 

My mom absolutely loved tending to Kaden and Kara and was pretty much the child whisper.

While our trip to Las Vegas was short and sweet we had so much fun just hanging out and enjoying the air conditioning :)

California Bound: Maternity Shopping

We planned on staying in Bear Lake for our entire 4th of July weekend, but after much convincing from my mom it was clear that we would be splitting our weekend between Bear Lake and Orange County.  My mom didn't quite understand my reasoning behind having not bought maternity clothes aka they are expensive. So needless to say we hopped on a flight Saturday morning and spent the day shopping for maternity clothes in California (which didn't take too long since there aren't many stores that sell them). I lucked out and was able to take advantage of gaps 4th of July sale where all their tees were 50% off. STEAL!  

Since our shopping was complete we then headed to a movie and since we still had two whole days in Cali I decided we should do something fun that we hadn't done before... Sunday I looked up baseball tickets and was pleasantly surprised to see that the angels were playing the Red Sox! Lance was as giddy as a school boy as we headed to the game and we ended up

With pretty amazing seats along side 1st base by the Rox Sox dugout. Lance enjoyed his ballpark dog, nachos, and drink for $17 while I enjoyed my $6 bottle water (I can't believe they charge so much!!)

Bear Lake 4th of July

Lance and I love our G-squared vacations with the Green's this time instead of heading to the Caribbean we headed to the Caribbean of the west... also known as Bear Lake, ID.
We arrived Thursday morning and spent a glorious day on the beach cooking hot dogs, enjoying a casual jaunt on the wave runners [I only went 10-15mph because I'm pregnant, where as Lance was going full speed and had to do circles around me to stay close by].  The entire day was turning out to be absolutely perfect... and then the storm came. 

We saw some dark clouds rolling in from the north and heading south to where we were.  We quickly started packing up all of our belongings and hauling them up to the road where we parked.  Greener went to the launching dock in hopes of meeting his cousins there on the wave runners.  Just when we were down to our large canopy and a few chairs the rain began to pour, sand began to blow and within a matter of seconds we witnessed multiple large canopies, tubes, and chairs all go flying in the air and into the water.  People were screaming and running for cover.  We quickly ducted under our half taken down canopy and held on for dear life.  Suddenly the rain turned into marble sized hail and was bouncing off the sand and bruising our legs.  Max and Mia, the Green's 5 year old twins were with us and huddled in grandma's arms.  The once tan beach turned solid white with hail.  We literally thought the world was ending, but luckily it all stopped after 15 minutes and we were able to make a run for our cars.  We experienced the real Independence Day.

Friday we spent out at the pool which was filled past max capacity and then took the Green's great dane, Chole to the lake where we ran, swam, and even pooped in the water (which made bystanders really mad).  We finished off our weekend with a BBQ of burgers and a trip down to Garden City for true Bear Lake Raspberry Shakes!!

 [pooping in the lake]